Page 64 of A Bride for the Cruel Duke

At this, the duke studied Caroline, a sense that he was seeing her for the first time. Was he impressed? Was he upset? Was he about to tell her off and demand that she leave his house and never return? It was impossible to say. He simply looked at her, and she looked back, refusing to blink. It was easy to do, she realized, as she was married to a man far more intimidating than His Grace.It is not even close.

“As you say,” His Grace said eventually, shrugged as if he didn’t care one way or the other. “At least that answers another question I had.”

“Which is?”

“How you truly feel about your husband...” He chuckled to himself, a smirk crossing his lips. “And I wager, how he feels about you. A match made in heaven, it would seem.”

“Yes, well...” Caroline looked away as if embarrassed. “We are happy, if that is what you mean.”

“Clearly.”

There was little else to do after that. With the information she required now attained, Caroline was quick to thank her sister and His Grace for their help and exit the home before she said or did anything else that might cause alarm. As she left, she heard over her shoulder her sister and His Grace bickering, tempers flared for reasons that she doubted had anything to do with her, as she was starting to understand that this was the natural state of her sister’s engagement.I do hope things change for her. She deserves happiness as much as anyone.

But there was no time to worry about that. It was just gone midday and Caroline needed to be home as quickly as possible. She had an evening to plan—one she was certain Anthony was going to love.As am I, if all goes how I expect it to.

ChapterTwenty-One

“You are allowed to smile,” Caroline said from beside Anthony. She was riding sidesaddle on her horse, seated so that she was facing him. On her face was a glorious smile that spoke of how pleased she must have been feeling with herself.

“Who says I wish to smile?” Anthony responded coolly, making sure to keep his expression flat.

“You do know, how, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Curious...” Her smile grew. “All this time, I might have assumed you had never learned. I can teach you, if that is the case.”

He looked at her flatly. “I know how to smile. The trick is doing something which causes such a reaction. So far, I am yet to see a reason.”

“So far...” She let the phrase dangle between them, the suggestion being that there was more to come from this most random outing. “I will remember that.”

“Do not get ahead of yourself,” Anthony responded. “You act as if I have never ridden a horse before.”

“And if this is all I had planned, I would not expect it.”

“And I suppose there is no chance of you telling me where it is that we are going?”

She winked. “I told you, it is a surprise. And it would not be much of one if I revealed said surprise too soon.”

“I could just turn around, you know.”

“You could.”

“After all, you are the one who has hijacked the afternoon. Who is to say that I did not have some glorious evening planned for us? An evening which has been stolen.”

“And I weep for it.” She could not have looked more pleased with herself. “Let us just hope that this matches whatever it is that you had planned.”

“And if it does not?”

She shrugged, her smile growing. “I will just have to learn to live with it.”

Anthony eyed her curiously, still not certain what to make of this most random little adventure he found himself on.

It had come from nowhere, this ride on horseback. Just an hour ago, Anthony had been planning a fourth evening spent with Caroline, one which was to end in a moonlit walk through the gardens together as hired violinists played for them in a way that could only be regarded as the height of romance. He had wanted to impress her. More than that, he had wanted to prove to himself that this marriage was on the right path.

This whole charade of theirs, the five chances, was beginning to feel redundant. It was so clear that they enjoyed one another’s company. It was so obvious that this had become about more than whether or not Caroline would agree to give him an heir. They were past that now.

For Anthony, it was about confirming once and for all, in Caroline’s eyes, that he was more than she had once thought, and that her fears about him were misplaced entirely.

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